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Saturday, October 02, 2010

Sometimes, we point and snigger at Neil McCormick, the Telegraph's friend of Bono music writer, but he's got a point this morning, listing the churning products of the Lennon Industry:

This is the latest offering from a posthumous, multi-million-dollar Lennon industry, partly fuelled by his widow's sometimes suspect desire to keep the flame burning. It has led to such dubious tributes as a TV commercial for the Citroën DS3, a Mont Blanc fountain pen retailing at $27,000, a limited edition Gibson Imagine guitar ($10,748), alongside the usual array of Lennon-branded mugs, clothing, books, calendars, prints and even an Imagine brand of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

I suspect Neil and I would disagree over the core of his argument. Neil insists this isn't what the man himself would want, or be doing, were he alive today; my suspicion is that Lennon would just be more careful than Yoko at merchandising the idea of the rock ascetic. But the headline?

John Lennon's 70th birthday: these tacky souvenirs and adverts insult his memory